Louisiana Purchase

The Louisiana Purchase occurred in 1803 when the United States purchased 828,000 square miles of mostly-uncolonized land (the "Louisiana Territory") from the French Consulate for $15,000,000 ($250,000,000 in 2017). French leader Napoleon Bonaparte decided that he could not defend Louisiana in the case of a rebellion or a war with Great Britain, and he decided to fund his upcoming war with the British by selling the region to America. President Thomas Jefferson successfully negotiated the purchase of the Louisiana Territory, which now includes Arkansas, Missouri, Iowa, Oklahoma, Kansas, and Nebraska and parts of Minnesota, North Dakota, South Dakota, New Mexico, Texas, Montana, Wyoming, Colorado, Louisiana, and parts of southern Canada (later ceded to the United Kingdom). The Federalist Party opposed the purchase on the grounds that it was unconstitutional to acquire a territory, but Jefferson successfully argued that the US Constitution allowed for him to negotiate treaties. The Americans inherited 60,000 people, half of them African-American slaves and the others French, Mexican, and Spanish settlers, and the Missouri Compromise of 1820 would decide the slavery issue in the newly-acquired territories.